That fire-breathing lizard which Hollywood spent $175 million to return to movie screens this summer was first brought from Japan to the United States by Dick Kay, C’42, a low-budget filmmaker who’s now retired and living in Beverly Hills. According to the Los Angeles Times, the 1956 version of Godzilla: King of the Monsters cost Kay (formerly Kovnick) and his partners a measly $100,000 to produce — American film rights and foam rubber lizard suit included.
Asked if he was sour about being excluded from the premiere of the latest incarnation of Godzilla, Kay told the L.A. Times, “I don’t care. I’ve been retired nine years now. Plus, the movie was strictly a job for me. It was a matter of bucks, not art.”
